Indigo

Remember when you were a kid and first learned about the color called indigo?  Mysterious, regal, more than blue but not quite purple, making the rainbow into "ROYGBIV"?  Love it.  Thrills me in my guts.  One of my favorite Crayolas.  Japan has a centuries-old love affair with indigo.  Deep like a summer's night sky, indigo-dyed textiles were traditionally made into work clothes, but also kimonos and noren (fabric door curtains) and pillows and table linens and all sorts of glorious things. 
Near my home there is a small shop called Blue and White that specializes in the best of Japanese blue and white crafts, including indigo textiles.  Not machine dyed, but dipped and steeped in huge jars by the few artists who still make it this way, their hands dyed black from years of work, celebrating this color that reminds us of sea and sky.

And I had to buy this book, written by the shop's owner.